You are up before the light. You woke up thinking about belief and hope and the differences – what comes to mind is that hope contains humility whereas belief may contain humility but more likely contains pride.
My example would be President Obama’s decision not to release the graphic photos – saying in effect, ‘we (our country) is above trophy-building’.
Personally, I don’t think our culture is above trophy-building at all – I wonder how much of our consumer materialism is exactly that. However, in this particular case, Obama does raise the sense of one’s national character. No one really loses much without the photos, that’s my opinion. On a similar note though, those who want to get out of Afghanistan now – some of them – may be saying so for higher moral reasoning – we have avenged those killed in 911 – let’s move on, keeping vigilant, as best we can.
What appears to be important to you here is that in one’s personal life (death-life included) the higher moral reasoning as free from pride and greed (and the other deadly sins as possible) is the most important in terms of personal character. One cannot be free of those basic human moral weaknesses, however. Decisions have to be thought out carefully when time allows the thinking. In the story, knowing one’s character fully (Know Thyself) means split second decisions can be made. With this in mind, who knows one’s self better, Takis or Mother?
This is a good question, and the answer is that ‘I do not know’.
Also, earlier, you had a fleeting thought about the other characters in the story and how this exchanging of souls between Takis and Mother, might affect their own sense of well-being.
I did, somehow I see the exchanging of the souls of two of the principal leaders – those who are becoming more important in the Rebellion – these souls are as a school of fish – darting ahead – leaving the rest of those in the school to follow suit.
You are a bit off base, boy, but there is a connection that will be a part of this scene. Then the next scene (eight) we will be back with the other characters who have their own decisions to make. I know the poem, 'Heart Exchange' by Sydney is the one you think of in terms of the soul exchange. Drop it in here as a reminder, then post.
“My True Love Hath My Heart”
By Sir Philip Sidney
My true-love hath my heart and I have his,
By just exchange one for the other given:
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss;
There never was a bargain better driven.
His heart in me keeps me and him in one;
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides:
He loves my heart, for once it was his own;
I cherish his because in me it bides.
His heart his wound received from my sight;
My heart was wounded with his wounded heart;
For as from me on him his hurt did light,
So still, methought, in me his hurt did smart:
Both equal hurt, in this change sought our bliss,
My true love hath my heart and I have his.
** **
This exchanging of souls in the story is a consideration that needs an engine in the story. A reflection of how it is with souls and they work they do behind the scenes. Perhaps they frame the scene from the inside out. Perhaps they are the floor, the planks of the stage, on which the characters struts and frets – the anchor, the chain to a kind of eternity of being consciously dead. This is not an engine though.
You are at Carter’s in the Mayfield outdoor mall area near I-271 waiting for Kim, Carol and Owen. You have been slowing working on dialogue and this is what you have come up with so far:
**
Gloama pondered, then she said, “When swelled with passion, in argument or otherwise, I cannot tell heart from soul or mind. How can this be done, Grandfather?”
An honest question from childhood, he thought and pondered.
In a more sarcastic and whiny tone than she expected from her mouthless, tongueless self she asked, “Are you going to ask this Tree on the Styx or tell me what you know?”
“You must feel the balance first.”
“You mean they weigh the same?”
“They weigh the same only when weighing from the soul.”
** **
When this was written I was struck with a point made by Yermey in “Pouch Text” in the series. In the thousands of years since the remaking of the marsupial-humanoid culture Yermey is the only one to have solved the secret of the two pills, the one that kills and the seemingly identical one that makes terribly ill. For this an other reasons he was considered the most powerful thinker of their three planet civilization. I forget what he did but it had to do with the observation of buoyancy not weight as both pills weighed the same. Whatever it was the difference was quite minute. Here is a selection on Yermey and the pills from book three, the last chapter of "Pouch Text":
** **
Conflicts of thought broke out because of this and the three planets divided into two main social camps, those who supported the further contact with earthlings, and those who did not. The third camp, the other third or so, didn’t give a damn one way or another. The beginning of the conflict actually began some five hundred years earlier when young Yermey, who was sixteen at the time, discovered a way to tell the difference in the two identical red pills given to each person at that age.
The exterior coating of the capsule would only unlock with specific DNA proteins. One pill would make a person deathly sick for months of terrible but non fatal pain, while the other pill would kill you instantly with no pain at all. Take them both at once and the person is deathly ill for even longer, but survived anyway, worse for wear, but hopefully wiser. It was to give each citizen a sense of duty and obligation to his fellow citizens. You did not want your friends to take either of the pills.
This humane system was extremely effective until word got out that young Yermey, who had taken one at sixteen got terribly sick, and because of this and an earlier experiment he was the first one in fifteen thousand years to crack the code, so to speak. This is when the discontent really began. A reformation if you will, because once people realized there was a way to tell the difference some worked underground, not unlike alchemists in the middle ages, looking for that difference, because to know this made thoughts of suicide easier to take. You just chose the right pill and life was quickly over.
You sacrificed yourself for the good of the many. Not unlike a soldier’s call. If you couldn’t stand the system, you hadn’t any friends, you didn’t care, you wanted to get even with someone, you just quickly took your life. ParentsinCharge were sure this would corrupt the whole system, but Yermey never told the secret. He didn’t even claim he knew it, but everyone on three planets knew that he did. There was an understanding, you see. Indeed, as Yermey grew and became more formally educated he was found to be a polymath, someone on the intellectual and creative order of a DaVinci and Shakespeare rolled into one.
** **
After twenty hundred hours, Owen is asleep and Carol and Kim are at the grocery. You needed a two-hour nap this afternoon. Post what you have. While researching for the previous piece you found another, specifically about Diplomat when she was three physically but an adolescent mentally. This concept came to you through an experience you had with a student (plus your imagination) you knew who was in the fifth grade physically but a senior in high school in terms of mental ability. This was enough for you to imagine the authenticity of watching little Diplomat meet the world. Here is the selection, also from the last chapter of “Diplomatic Pouch” in book three, Merlyn’s Mind.
** **
[The time period is 2003 I believe] [the Soki, as narrator, is talking]:
(I am jumping again, this time to Diplomat at three. She is reading every book she can get her little hands on, and she can talk as well as any educated adult in two languages, marsupialese with Hartolite, Friendly, and Yermey, and English with Pyl [her biological mother], Glenn, Justin and Blake. “Seven in the family,” she says, “just like seven days in the week [Diplomat considers all these people above as a mother or father in her heart.]
“But you are number eight,” noted Pyl as she was combing her daughter, coal black fine hair to her neck.
“That is true,” she said, “but eventually I will have to find my own family so I don’t think I should count as much.”
Friendly responded forcefully, “You count the same in math, and you count the same in this family. We are eight, not seven. What do you want to do change the calendar now, and make eight days in a week instead, so that you will still be right?”
“No, I don’t Mom-Friendly. You think you are clever,” she added and rolled her eyes smartly.
“Look, young one, you may be smarter than all of us put together, but you need to learn some things you can only learn in growing up. You can walk and run now. You remember when you could not? Look at the change in your perspective of things by being able to walk and run.”
“My legs don’t change my perspective about reading. I was reading very early.”
“And, now, young lady, you are talking too much,” snapped Hartolite.
“You women are jealous of me that’s what it is, because I hold the affection of all the men in this family equally, and I know the relationships are not equal among you seven. Do you want me to go into it?”
“We aren’t evenly matched,” said Pyl. “Besides, we are adults and can deal with our relationships by ourselves.”
“When will I be an adult?”
“When you don’t have to ask, that’s when,” snapped. Pyl as she gave the girl’s hair a tug.
“Owl,” she said. Then she giggled. “What did the owl say to the pussy cat?”
“I don’t know, what?” smiled Friendly.
“I don’t give a hoot what you say, pussy is the cat’s meow.”
No one laughed, because they were not sure what she was talking about and didn’t want to encourage her.
“It was a joke, ladies. Come on, get with it, laugh!”
“I’m not sure I get it,” said Hartolite clinching her teeth while thinking about the ten thousand reruns of Who’s Line Is It Anyway.
“Me either,” said Friendly who shrugged her shoulders and threw her hands out like she wanted something to be put in them.
“Nor me,” said Pyl. “And you are not being very nice today. What is the problem?”
“I don’t like to be polite all the time. It is not honest,” she bluntly retorted.
“We do understand that problem. It is something adults have to live with. You are a little young to be thinking such things.”
“I read MacBeth. The little boy asks where the honest men are, and there aren’t any. Soon he is killed like the rest of them. All for power. Well, not power exactly,” she added thoughtfully.
“What was it for if it was not power? That’s what killed Camrasel, you know,” said Friendly.
“I know, you told me all about it. She is the only one who took the pill and she took the wrong one because she forgot which was which.” She paused, “I don’t think that is the reason though, she didn’t forget. She got them mixed up because her eyes were funny, always shifting to one side or the other like some sort of playful cat toying with a live mouse.”
“But,” retorted Friendly, “if they shifted right to left and left to right how could she mix them up if they were in the glass of water when she pulled one out?”
“I think she wasn’t sure, and didn’t want to make a mistake, and she held the glass up and the refraction of the pills in the water mixed them up for her.”
‘People considered that,’ thought Friendly, ‘but no one knows. One of her friends said she talked about it with her, but was going to take the ‘get-terribly-sick-now pill for sympathy, and got them mixed up.’ That sounded more like Camrasel, and that was the story most supported.
“Or,” said Diplomat while looking directly at Friendly, “she could have mixed up the pills playing on sympathy just like Shakespeare was playing on his audience. He may have been talking about the uses of power and greed and lack of patience in MacBeth, but he also wanted the King as his audience along with a lot of other people. A writer writes for an audience, even if it is only an audience of one, her or himself.” She paused between the her and him to make it clear she was not mixing the languages. Then she said, “I think President Bush is either like Hamlet or like MacBeth. I don’t know which, but I am considering both at the moment.”
“And why is that?” asked Pyl smiling that they had passed the owl and cat joke and on something more dignified, President Bush.”
“I have been thinking on this and here is what I have decided at the moment. Next week I may think something else. This is my opinion, and I know it only counts as that. And we all know that around this house opinions don’t count for much since everyone has so many diverse judgments around here,” she let in a little snap of her own to rectify the situation in her young eyes as she sat with her legs crossed looking like an innocent, white skinned young Alice in an old Victorian picture book.
“Back to President Bush,” said Friendly with a warning tone in her voice.
“He is like Hamlet in that he takes forever to make up his mind, and he is like MacBeth because he thinks being king is going to solve everything by itself.”
“Aren’t you being a bit like MacBeth in the way you are acting.”
“I am not a king,” she said. “We don’t have kings or queens in this country.”
“You are acting like one with all your opinions, young lady,” said Hartolite kindly.
The effect of the words interwoven with the tone Friendly took hold and shook young Diplomat to the core. Tears welled up. “I’m so sorry,” she said in a genuine voice she rarely used because it was too honest for her to admit to. “I don’t know why my nature is such. I really don’t. I am being very defensive and obstinate lately, and I am not sure why.”
“Perhaps it is because you are different,” said Pyl as she gave her daughter a quick hug and a kiss on the ear. Pyl put down the brush and added, “I think we are done with this hair for now.”
“No,” said Diplomat, “I think it is because we are all different from one another. Everyone has their opinion and is allowed to express it out loud but I think, like Yermey says, people should keep their opinions to themselves or be quiet with them and write them out for others to read and consider. Hartolite, the tone of your voice in conjunction with the words spoken brought the emotions in me out. I am thankful for that, and we are a family of eight and that is enough for now anyway. I am like Hamlet, in that I have to think things out. And, I am like MacBeth too, because I like to be the center of attention, and I don’t have to do too much to gain it. Maybe that is what the problem is, I need to work for my attention in this family. I need to grow up.”
“You are growing up quite rapidly enough, said Friendly with a gentle smile. ‘What are we going to do with this girl?’ she thought, and as she looked into the eyes of Pyl and Hartolite she could see they were thinking the same thing.
“But first,” cracked Diplomat as she wiped away the last of her warm tears, “getting back to the owl and pussy cat joke.”
( That is more than enough from a three year old, added the Soki. )
** **
I have to say, this was a funny scene to write. She really wanted to talk about that owl and pussy cat joke and the adults were afraid of what she was going to come up with. One of their concerns is that if this is how she is thinking now what in the world is she going to be like as a teen-ager when the hormones are flowing. I must say I am a little concerned about that too. Biologically she will sexual both as a marsupial humanoid and a human. She has a pouch, two human breasts and two breast inside her pouch. She also has two virginas, one above the other. By this time though she will be maturally adult-minded. Fun to think about. I cannot image what her character is going to be like when I get into book six.
[I like to imagine her from a father’s point of view – with my students I liked to imagine the girls and the boys from an old uncle’s or father’s or a grandfatherly perspective. Seniors (seventeen and eighteen year olds) were so much fun to know and teach. Now I'll post. - rho ]
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